General insurance marketing: A review and future research agenda

Abstract

The financial services sector is a huge and diverse industry comprising many different forms of organisations and product offerings. Yet, a review of past papers in the Journal of Financial Services Marketing (JFSM) reveals a heavy bias towards articles on banking, to the neglect of other equally important financial services categories. The purpose of this paper is to address this imbalance and to call for more research to be conducted in a wider range of financial services categories. In particular, general insurance is singled out as a category worthy of further research. Looking to the past, this paper reviews research published to-date on general insurance in the JFSM to establish a benchmark and explore theoretical contributions. Attention is then turned to the future to identify a research agenda for the general insurance sector going forward. 5 important themes are identified: trust, transparency and simplification, technology, HNW and Takaful.

Non-life insurance cancellation: a systematic quantitative literature review

“…The fact that insurance customers purchase peace of mind that, in the event of an insured loss, will be indemnified makes insurance one of the most intangible of all the financial services. In the absence of a claim, customers may feel that the purchase was unnecessary, generating dysfunctional behaviour (Robson 2015). However, even when a claim is made and the product is consumed, the complexity of the product and consumer apathy can lead to wrong purchases in the form of underinsurance or no insurance, enhancing the behaviour (Robson 2015).…”

“…In the absence of a claim, customers may feel that the purchase was unnecessary, generating dysfunctional behaviour (Robson 2015). However, even when a claim is made and the product is consumed, the complexity of the product and consumer apathy can lead to wrong purchases in the form of underinsurance or no insurance, enhancing the behaviour (Robson 2015).…”

“…This reveals companies' inability to price themselves based on differentiating factors; as a result, they descend towards commodity markets. Robson (2015) indicates that general insurance, excluding large commercial insurance, is becoming a commoditised market as a consequence of the homogenisation of policy coverage. Therefore, it seems consequential that customer retention in insurance is becoming more and more important, especially with regards to the most valuable customers, because of their increasing awareness of market dynamics and the increasing number of market competitors (Günther et al 2014).…”

“…Despite its importance, customer retention in insurance hasn't been a priority in terms of scientific research. It has failed to capture the attention of financial services marketing academics (Robson 2015).…”

Measuring Customer Intrinsic Value, Brand Trust and Consumer-Brand Relationship in the Life Insurance Industry: Scale Development and Validation

“…Review of past studies that discusses customer intrinsic values, brand trust and consumer-brand relationship reveals that many studies have paid attention to the banking industry and neglected equally important other financial services sectors (Robson, 2015). Accordingly, this study intends to fill this gap and address this imbalance by exploring the above-mentioned constructs and developing a scale that may be relevant to the life insurance industry.…”